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The
$2 tobacco tax increase begins April 1, 2017. Let your colleagues know
more smokers and vapers may be asking for help.read more here

The
Sacramento Bee also has a great 1 minute video of 3 people talking about the
$2 tax increase tomorrow. Two are smokers saying it's motivating them to
quit, and one is a shopkeeper saying his sales will go down, view video here .

The
cigarette tax rate on Saturday spikes from the current 87 cents to $2.87 per
pack of 20 cigarettes.

For most
smokers, that will put the cost of a standard pack of cigarettes in the $8 to
$9 ballpark.

In addition,
also effective Saturday, the distribution of “nicotine delivery devices” – a
segment that includes electronic cigarettes, e-cigars, e-pipes, vape pens, and
e-hookahs – sold in combination with substances containing nicotine will be
subject to a tax rate of 27.3 percent of the wholesale cost of the product.
Those devices have not been subject to the tobacco products tax.

California’s
Board of Equalization noted that nicotine delivery devices sold independently
and not in combination with any liquid or substance containing nicotine are not
subject to excise tax. That includes batteries, battery chargers, carrying
cases or “any other accessory used in the operation of a nicotine delivery
device.”

U.S. Food
and Drug Administration-approved products designed to help consumers reduce or
quit smoking, such as nicotine patches, are not subject to the tax.

News: CEASE- Clinical Effort against Second Hand Smoke Exposure- has new website- January 2017

CEASE, or the Clinical Effort against Secondhand Smoke Exposure, trains pediatric providers to help parents quit smoking to reduce the burden of second and third hand smoke on children. The website includes a link to the FREE CEASE training- with free CME/CEUs-which prepares providers to implement CEASE in their own clinical settings.

More than 3 million Californians still smoke, and a staggering 40,000 Californians will die this year from tobacco-related diseases. The skyrocketing popularity of e-cigarettes among youths is creating a new generation of addicts. This year, nearly 17,000 California kids will start smoking and one-third of them will eventually die from tobacco-related illnesses.

The leading cause of preventable death nationwide and in California, tobacco exacts a grave toll on communities, families, health care systems and businesses. Tobacco kills more Californians than car accidents, guns, alcohol, illegal drugs and AIDS combined, and harms the health of nonsmokers through secondhand smoke.This is a public health crisis.

Dr.Elisa Tong is the team lead for the Tobacco Stakeholder Advisory Group: California Dialogue on Cancer (CDOC).Comprehensive cancer control programs can play a vital role in facilitating the systemic changes necessary to support tobacco cessation initiatives. Dr. Elisa Tong, and Shauntay Davis, discuss "Tobacco Cessation in Cancer Prevention and Treatment: A Call to Action for California Cancer Centers." This document highlights gaps in cessation services and

A contest among local tobacco control programs and community tobacco control advocates in California was held during May of 2016. The contest provided an opportunity for local projects to share their efforts in promoting the California Smokers' Helpline. Twenty-two entries were submitted by projects throughout California to showcase the creative and thoughtful ways that tobacco control advocates are promoting the Helpline in local communities.

While all entries were excellent, and the competition was tough, the California Tobacco Control Program was pleased to announce the winner of theBest Media Relations Project: UC Quits, Press Release.

The goal was to educate the general public about how the 5 UC medical centers were connecting to the California Smokers’ Helpline through electronic health records system. The press release resulted in approximately 500 online hits per GoogleAlert, and was picked up by several publications including the Sacramento Bee.

The article lists many of the UC Quits health professional champions across UC Davis, UC San Francisco, UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, and UC San Diego. This multidisciplinary team reflects inpatient and outpatient physicians, nursing, pharmacy, and health education. Key partners include the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at UC San Francisco and the California Smokers' Helpline at UC San Diego.

The UCDMC Smoking Cessation Team was selected as a recipient of the 2015 Dean’s Team Award for Inclusion Excellence. Dean Julie Freischlag is on the left. Many thanks to the team members recognized below:

In 2013, Dr. Elisa Tong, an assistant professor at the UC Davis Medical Center, created UC Quits, a program to combat the ongoing battle against tobacco within the UC Health System. What started as a pilot program in 2013 through the UC Davis Medical Center, UC Quits has grown to include five UC medical centers and has reached almost 2,500 patients struggling with tobacco and nicotine addiction.

The UC healthcare system will play a larger role in helping students kick their smoking habits through the new initiative, UC Quits. The program aims to bring care providers into the smoking-cessation process by creating a shared network between UC healthcare centers and a UCSD-based anti-smoking helpline, according to a Dec. 29 press release.

November 19, 2015, was the 40th Anniversary of the Great American Smokeout. Linda Sarna, interim dean of the UCLA School of Nursing, and Russell Johnson,
curator at the biomedical library, hold an old advertisement showing a nurse
smoking Camels and touting the cigarette's freshness. Sarna donated the ad and
other materials to the library's collection.